Resistance

My biggest resistance this semester at BYU is probably time management. I have this problem where I don't want to study or do homework when I have something better to do, which is most of the time. So it's really hard for me to do homework that I should be doing when I know I could be out playing. I've also had a really hard time with this whole "studying" concept. I've never studied for anything before. Like ever. And now my classes are hard and if I don't study for my tests then I am SOL. I still haven't overcome either of these things yet, but I'm working on it. I think a lot of it just takes some getting used to. It also probably has something to do with my frame of mind; just me thinking, "okay, what is really more important? what's going to matter in the long run?" And once I can do that every time i have homework to do I think I'll be able to get more done. Another help with that would be to go to bed earlier so that I can conentrate on my reading and such.

All Hallow's Eve

My halloween was such a funny day. I had plans to hang out with my boyfriend and we weren't dressing up, but my roommates were dressing up, and so they needed costumes. Well who better to go to when you need a costume than Jenn? I had already provided the amazing 80's aerobic outfits for the ward party, so they knew i had a wealth of goods. So i dressed Josie in my hot 80's bra, blue net top, fish nets, hot shorts, and a skirt. It was beautiful. And then I went to dinner with Adam and we ate at this Indian place, and the people there were so funny. First of all, the Indian guys working there were way funny. They were all wearing these masks and hoods that kind of creeped me out, but then they would come talk in their Indian accents and I had to try so hard not to laugh. Then there were these people at the table next to us that were so funny. It was this kind of older guy dressed as a sorcerer or something, I'm not really sure what, but he was totally wearing a dress and this long white wig, and had glitter all over his face. And then his date was a girl wearing kind of a matching costume, it was a medieval looking dress, but she looked normal because she's a girl. But he kept making her take pictures of him in his costume and kept making weird comments about her being brown. So awkward. I just laughed at them the whole time, they were so funny. And then we went back to Adam's and his friend Clay came over and saw the pumpkins in the corner and was like, hey I learned how to make a dessert with pumpkin while I was on my mission. So we went to Macey's to get the stuff he needed and came back so he could make it and he cooked while Adam and I carved Harold Delbert. Then one of Adam's roommates came home with his friends and so it was me and like seven guys. So we're just hanging out and then one of the guys was like, hey can we watch a movie? And we were like yeah sure. So what movie do a the guys pick out? Tristan and Isolde, total chick flick. So funny. So we watched that and then went home. The end.

Work Wisdom

I really enjoyed President Hinckley's stories about his childhood and how his parents taught him the value of hard work. I liked this part because every time I want something from my parents they tell me that if they just gave it to me then I would never learn how to work for what I wanted. They've taught me a lot through that and I can see the difference it has made for me compared to my friends whose parents buy them whatever they want. Some of my friends' families are just really loaded and they can afford to buy whatever they want whenever they want. I know that's really nice for them, and sometimes I wish that my parents were like that too. But then I look at how ungrateful my friends are for everything they have. They expect their parents to spoil them and get angry when they don't get what they want. It makes me glad that my parents have taught me how to work; that they've made me get jobs and pay for things myself so that I don't take everything for granted. And I think that's exactly why President Hinckley shared his childhood experiences, so people would learn how to teach their children how to work hard.

Education in Zion

One part of the exhibit that I really thought was interesting was the part about all the academies the church set up. It talked about all the schools that were made when the pioneers first came to Utah and how all of them were church schools, which I should've realized before because the pioneers were all mormons, but I'd just never thought about it before. I knew about Brigham Young Academy, but that was it. I didn't know that there were so many church schools. I also didn't realize that that's where seminary and institute came from. It was added on to other schools for kids who couldn't go to the church academies. I also didn't know that the church still has schools in like Mexico and Somoa and places like that where there aren't other schools for the kids to go to. I thought that was way cool; I think it would have been great to grow up in a church school and have religion put into the regular academic curriculum like that.
Another thing I thought was interesting was in a different section, but it talked about priesthood schools, which I had never heard of before. What I thought was really funny about it though, was this list of things the students repented of before they came to class and one of them was oversleeping. I had never thought of that as something to repent of before, and especially back then when they had to get up at like five and milk the cows or whatever I don't imagine it would be a big problem, so that was really interesting.

Homecoming

This was the lamest assignment. To get my "homecoming experience" I went to the BBQ at Brigham Square. Pretty much i stood in line for like half and hour to get a crappy hamburger and bag of chips. The band played for like ten minutes and I love the band, but they left before I even got my food. And then the Cougarettes performed, but it was only six of them and the dances they did were just the ones they do to the band songs at football games. They weren't even real dances, just pom. Lame lame lame. And that was it. There was nothing else to do so then I left. The End.

Conference Correction

During the Sunday morning session of conference, President Thomas S. Monson spoke about change. He spoke of the familiar adage, "nothing is so constant as change." It wasn't familiar to me, but I thought it was kind of funny. It seems really contradictory, but when you think about it it's totally true. He talked about worrying about today, not dwelling on the past. Stresses that always seem to be present in life will always change. Always say I love you, always express your thanks. Don't take others for granted. He gave lots of good advice about what should be first priorities, like friends and family. I really liked this talk because, first of all it was given by President Monson and he's the coolest. Second of all he used tons of good quotes and kept referring to things I knew about, like Our Town. And then of course I liked it because I'm one of those people who gets really wrapped up in certain things and it makes me stress out sometimes, so I really appreciate his advice. He spoke of a lot of things that I really need to work on; things that I actually want to work on so that I can live happily and not worry so much about things that don't really matter.

Y the Y?

Before today I had never heard the statement, "Once a cougar, always a cougar." Reflecting on it, however, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. In high school I thought that I would always be a Don. Now that I'm out of high school I've realized how little I actually care about Spanish Fork High. BYU is different though. It has a legacy and a reputation. Going to BYU is a unique experience because of all these dang mormons. I thought it would be normal for me to go to a school with a bunch of LDS kids because my high school was hugely mormon, but it's not the same. I love that we can start class with a prayer or relate the topic in class to the gospel. I was in the PS lab the other day and one of the TA's was talking about gravity. Someone asked if the earth would eventually be sucked into the sun because of it's gravity. The TA was like, "yes, it would, except by that time the sun will have grown big enough to envelope the earth anyway. But I figure, hey, Christ will have come by then and we won't have to worry about it." I thought that was way cool that we could just talk about something like that at school. I like that I can look around the Cougareat at lunch time and see a bunch of kids praying over their food. That's not something that people feel comfortable doing anywhere else, but at BYU it's almost normal.
Once I graduate from BYU I'm not really sure what kind of responsibilities that will entail. I'm sure that according to the school it means I should donate lots of money to invest in the future or something. And if I marry a rich man that may happen. But I think it's more of a moral responsibility to keep BYU an upstanding university. If I didn't like the people I knew that came here or if people talked badly about it I wouldn't have wanted to come here. So I need to tell people why I like it so that they will have the same opportunity as me.

Inventory

One aspect of school that is a lot better than I expected is the homework load. Coming here everyone was like, "oh you're going to have so much homework, you're taking way too many credits, blah blah blah," but I haven't had too much. Part of this may be due to the fact that I'm taking dance classes that I never have homework for, but even if I don't count the dance classes I haven't had as much homework as I anticipated. Now this may change after I take my first test in all my classes and realize I should be spending more time on homework, but for now my workload is fairly decent.

Something harder than I anticpated is the expectations of some of my teachers. Some of my classes are really hard, and it's not just that we have a lot of homework or anything, it's just that there are some hard concepts to understand or like the teacher's expect us to know things that we haven't been taught. This isn't in all of my classes though, just a couple of them. Overall it hasn't been bad, but there are always a couple classes that are just killer. It's the way the world works.

If I could change one thing it would be my schedule. Every day except for Tuesday I have these random breaks between classes and it's really annoying. It's not long enought that it's really worth it to drive home, but it's long enough that I run out of things to do. I'll bring a textbook or something and read for a while, but I usually finish my reading before my next class starts and then I feel like I'm just wasting time, but there's not really anything for me to do.

Adventures in Zoobieland

My adventure began in the apartment, trying to make the roommates wake up. For some reason they weren't too excited about going adventuring. I finally got them up and as we were driving to campus someone was like, "hey what's that building?" And I knew that it was the Hinckley Building, but none of us had ever been in there so we decided we should check it out. So we go in there and there are all these ladies like asking if we need any help and we're like, no we're just looking around. So we wandered away and found this really cool conference room. And then we found the stairwell and all the doors said "Authorized Personnel Only," but we peeked and no one was in there so we went in anyway. There wasn't much upstairs, mostly just offices and conference rooms. And then we decided to sneak out the basement and we found all these graduation robes. Which I totally wasn't tempted to put on at all. Once we got out of there the next stop was the HFAC. Okay that building doesn't look that big, but I swear it has about 80 floors. We got super lost in there, and we were sneaking around and everytime we heard someone coming we would jump like a foot, it was so funny. But the best was when we got to this bulletin board. There was crap written all over this thing. So of course we didn't add our own little touch because that would have been completely immature. After that we started to get kinda tired so we took a little nap, and then continued on. We didn't know where to go from there, so we played around the MOA for a little bit, and then went to the JFSB. We wanted to go up the cool looking spiral staircase, but they had it blocked off so we couldn't. So then we went to the Eyring and we got to go on the roof and look at Jupiter!! (The picture that looks like a moon with moons would be that large planet of which I am speaking). Super duper cool. We're pretty much nerds because we played with all the stuff in that building, but hey what can you do? But then we really started getting tired and decided to head home. It was a pretty good dang adventure.

Bloch Talk

On Wednesday after class I went to see Bloch's painting of Christ at Bethesda. It was huge, and it made it so much easier to notice the little details that I didn't see in class. With all the shadows, some things that were hidden before came into view, like the man in the bottom left corner. I think this is who I am like the most right now. Most of the people in the painting aren't paying attention, there are only like three people actually looking at Christ. The man in the corner is one of them. He's not sick and waiting to be healed, it looks like he was just going about his business and scrubbing the floor or something. But then he notices Christ, and his attention is immediately fixed on Him. And I think that's kind of where I am right now. I'm not the sick waiting to be healed or the people ignoring Him, but I respect Christ and look up to Him. I know I'm not as close to Him as I could or should be, but I'm working on it. And that's what I think that man is doing. Also, it was much easier to see the themes of light and dark in person. Christ is so bright in this picture, and it's like he's lifting the sick man's veil and bringing him into the light. In class we talked about the man with the red hat as well. He seems to be a central focus of this painting, but he's not a main character. Some people said that he looked disgusted or mad, but I don't agree with that. I think looks so weak and is craving what the other man is getting, but doesn't know how to receive Christ himself. With our theme of disciple-scholarship, this painting obviously teaches more about the disciple side. It shows what can happen with humility and faith, and how Christ will bless you and heal you of all your sins and pains. Overall I think the painting is wonderful and love what it says about Christ.